


the faded stars

by shemanofiron



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Kes Dameron (mentionned), Leia Organa(mentionned), M/M, Mention of past deaths, Muran (mentionned), Poe Dameron has a lot on his mind, Poe and his Pilots, Poe/Muran (mentionned), Post-Battle of Exegol, Post-war existential crisis, Rey (mentionned) - Freeform, Shara Bey (mentionned), Snap (mentionned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27723854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shemanofiron/pseuds/shemanofiron
Summary: There were so many beings, Resistance and strangers, floating around the base, clapping Poe on the shoulder, offering him drinks, yelling songs of victory with all their heart. And as relieved and happy and alive as Poe was, the euphoria was starting to fade off his veins – suddenly, the General needed to get away, as far as possible.
Relationships: Karé Kun/Temmin "Snap" Wexley (mentionned), Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 14
Kudos: 32





	the faded stars

**Author's Note:**

> hi hello how are you here is my first fic and me is very nervous about it
> 
> i've started writing this a few months ago, because i missed the Black Squadron and the rest of Poe's extended history and i was sad we didn't get to see more of them on the screen except for when they decided to MURDER SNAP WEXLEY mmmmm so here's my contribution to what happened right after Exegol, when everyone is celebrating their victory (kind of) and getting drunk
> 
> i apologize if the writing/the tenses are a bit off sometimes, english is not my first language but i tried my best -- any tip or comment on it is mooore than welcome!!!
> 
> (also thanks to alex (@/poesgucciscarf on twitter) bc i don't think this fic would have ever seen the light of day without her)
> 
> anyway enjoy !

When Poe finally got away from the heart of the celebration, night had fallen.

Night had fallen since long, and people were still dancing, whooping, drinking and laughing – everywhere, all around the base, crowded around the spaceships or back in the med-bay, waiting for a loved one who got hurt during the battle.

There were so many beings, Resistance and strangers, floating around the base, clapping Poe on the shoulder, offering him drinks, yelling songs of victory with all their heart. And as relieved and happy and _alive_ as Poe was, the euphoria was starting to fade off his veins – suddenly, the General needed to get away, as far as possible.

So, he laid a quick kiss on Finn’s cheek, squeezed Rey’s hand one more time, and left the crowded base in quest of a quieter place, a place his tired heart was longing for. Poe was not really sure of where he was going, mainly trusting his feet and ears to get him away from the noise, earning himself a few more clasps on the back as he made his way through the swarming base.

It was all cheers and laughter and songs – until it was not.

There, in the small clearing where Poe vaguely remembered landing his worn-out X-Wing, the calm was almost astonishing. As if the trees behind him were forming an invisible wall isolating him from the rest of Ajan Kloss.

Holding the elbow of his immobilized arm with his right hand, the general took a few steps towards the middle of the clearing, breathing as deeply as his lungs let him before lifting his eyes to look at the stars.

The beautiful, glittering and faraway stars.

_I belong to the stars_.

He remembered saying these words, he remembered saying them more than once. He remembered the pride on his mother’s face, and the love hiding the fear in his father’s eyes. He remembered his younger self, fresh out of the Academy and ready to take on the world. Deflecting the New Republic Navy for a better cause, something he knew he could believe in. Fighting for a world he knew in his heart was worth it. Struggling to end a war his parents had worked so hard to win.

_Hey, mom, look. We finally did it_.

He thought about Yavin IV, and suddenly missed his father even more – he would comm him after the celebrations, let him know he was alive. It felt like he hadn’t seen the old man’s smile in ages, and Poe felt a pinch of guilt at that thought – he didn’t even say goodbye before leaving for Exegol.

But everything happened so fast. Everything happened so fast.

Because a day ago he was a commander fighting for the galaxy, and now he was the general of a winning revolution.

Poe’s throat tightened at the thought of this title, of the weight it carried, of what it meant – it meant that for him, the fight was far from over. It meant the one figure Poe always believed to be so stable and immortal was not anymore. It meant Poe was left to play in the big league, to fill shoes that he somehow knew would never really fit him. It meant Leia was gone, and never coming back.

_You really did me dirty on this one, uh?_ he painfully smiled at the sky, which was starting to blurry, his eyes slowly flooded by all the tears he hadn’t had time to shed yet.

That’s when something caught his attention – a muffled noise, like a sob, somewhere on his right. When Poe finally looked away from the stars, he realized a tiny light was flickering behind one of the X-Wings – behind Karé’s X-Wing.

Poe took a few steps towards the light, around the starfighter, to discover his old friend leaning against her ship, knees drawn close to her chest, hands hiding her face. Poe’s heart sank a bit more.

“Hey, Kun,” His voice was hoarse, sounding more broken than he’d like it to.

The Captain didn’t answer. Poe didn’t blame her.

He simply took another breathe, and sat down on the grass, not to close to her, not to far either. Letting Karé’s quiet sobs give a sad pulse to the silence around them. A small candle was settled on the ground before her, dimly lightening the orange of their flight suits and the grass they were sitting on. Its flame was flickering, left and right, bending with the small breeze coming from the darkness of the jungle.

Images started to flash back to Poe’s mind, a ship catching fire, a scream – his voice or someone else’s, he couldn’t remember.

_Snap, they’re on your tail!_

_Yeah, I see ‘em._

All of their screams echoing Snap’s as his X-Wing crashed, exploding, and leaving no hope for survival. Poe remembered himself a few hours earlier, rushing through the base, helmet tucked under his arm, and grinning when Wexley clasped a firm hand on his shoulder to wish him luck.

_Hey, General, how about tonight we finally open that bottle from Naboo we’ve been keeping? I’m sure ‘Lo still has it somewhere in his tent._

Poe remembered laughing and answering something quickly before taking off. Now he wished he had said more. Wished he had looked at him a bit longer, hugged him, answered something funnier. His heart tightened painfully.

Next to him, Karé’s face finally appeared from behind her shaking hands as the captain tried to wipe her cheek with the back of her hand – even though tears were still clearly falling from the corner of her eyes. Poe stayed silent, his own cheeks a bit wetter with every blink.

“Fuck, Poe,” Her voice was harsh, broken, quiet. Poe couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Karé cry. “I-I can’t, this is…” A new sob shook her body, turning her face into a pained grimace. Poe instinctively reached out to grab one of her hands, well aware that no word could soothe this pain.

So, he held tight, waiting for her to calm down again. Silent. Drawing small circle on her palm with his thumb. Grieving, too.

“I didn’t tell him that I loved him,” Poe had never heard Karé’s voice sounding so small and cracked.

“Karé—”

“No, Poe, I know.” She withdrew her hand from his to run it down her face. “I know, okay? I know he knew.” She looked at the ring on her finger, taking a deep and trembling breath, her lips pinched as another sob shook her. “But I should’ve told him—” Her voice broke again, high-pitched. “I should’ve told him one more time. And I didn’t. I didn’t.”

When she hid her face again, Poe looked down – he couldn’t take her pain away, nor find any word to help her. He dimly wondered if he would ever see Karé smile again.

“Hey.”

Karé and Poe looked up at the same time, only to find Iolo standing next to the X-Wing, his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slumped. He looked so tired, the light of the candle highlighting the circles beneath his eyes and the small wound on his forehead. Still, a shy smile stretched his lips.

“Hey,” Poe answered as their friend came to sit across from Karé, crossing his legs and taking a long look at her.

The Rapier Squadron reunited again.

What was left of it, at least.

Poe thought about Muran, about his death and how none of them ever really recovered from it. It felt so heavy, at the time. Now Poe had lost more pilots and friends than he could count, and all of their names still resonated in his head from time to time. But Muran had always been different, always more painful. Just like Snap would be for Karé.

For all of them, really.

“Feels so unreal,” Iolo mumbled, tracing an invisible motif on the ground, his gaze lost somewhere faraway.

Iolo Arana. Captain of the Resistance Fleet, Dagger One. Rapier Three. The eternal pessimist, but also one of the most dedicated and brave fighters Poe had ever known. Poe remembered his first day at the Academy, the way Iolo beamed at him. Two little farm boys lost in a sea of future pilots.

Thinking back to the crush he used to have on the Keshian almost made Poe chuckle – it felt like a lifetime ago, like it was another Poe who looked at another Iolo with glitters in his eyes. Like it was another Karé who used to make fun of the way they both tiptoed around each other.

A lifetime ago, and the three of them were together again, celebrating and breathing and grieving.

Mostly grieving.

“Yeah,” Poe whispered, his eyes finally leaving Iolo’s face to look back at Karé.

She wasn’t crying anymore – her jaw was set, her gaze fixed on her golden ring. It took Poe a lot of concentration not to burst in tears at the thought that its twin was lost somewhere on the surface of Exegol, laying with the last traces of Temmin Wexley’s existence.

Poe had been a pilot for most of his life, but he never managed to conciliate with the fact that most of their memorials were held without a body to bury.

And when the next day would finally come, when the celebration would tone down and euphoria would wear off, Poe would be the one saying their names aloud and honoring their lives in front of the survivors. He remembered all the memorials he had to go through, how his whole body would start shaking with pain and guilt as Leia’s voice guided them all through the ceremonies – and now, it was his turn to guide others. To hold on for them. To keep his voice steady and his head high.

But he would have Finn by his side. Amazing and beautiful and strong Finn to help him through it. To carry the heavy burden of death with him.

Poe felt a sudden pinch of guilt at the thought that he had dragged Finn in command with him, that he had felt too weak to do this alone, that he threw such a great responsibility to someone as young as him. That Poe Dameron, Resistance fighter and Black Leader, had been too scared to lead on his own.

He wondered what went through Leia’s mind – did she really believe him to be strong enough?

Poe swallowed, hard. She really was gone. He remembered losing his mother, remembered the dark months after that, remembered the aching hole in his heart. He remembered the first time Leia looked at him – at _Shara’s boy_ – and all the times after that, how his heart would grow a bit more every time she smiled at him – every time he’d make her proud.

Part of him felt eight again, looking at the tree growing in his garden, trying to figure out what life meant now that his dad was sleeping alone and that there was nobody left to fly the old A-Wing sitting empty in the shed.

Now Poe had lost a second mother and was again trying to figure out what his future would hold. What it meant to be Poe Dameron, and to carry the legacy of both Shara Bey and Leia Organa.

A branch cracked on his left, bringing him back to the present, and Poe turned to look at the newcomer.

“Thought I’d find you all here,” Jessika smiled, but a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Thought you were getting drunk with Zorii to get her to spill stuff about Poe,” there was a small smirk on Iolo’s lips when he lifted his head to look at her.

Karé let out a small sound, between a laugh and a sob, and Poe ran a hand down his face.

“I’m gonna kill you all,” he mumbled. “You all know that spice runner thing was an undercover mission, you were _there_.”

“Yeah,” Jess laughed, her arms crossed on her chest. “But you never told us why it went sideway, so we always assumed it was because you embarrassed yourself and had to call it off.”

“I—”

“Come on, Dameron, you can’t blame us for assuming the most plausible option.” Karé looked at him for the first time since he sat down, and the small smile on her lips was too good for Poe to really feel mad. He rolled his eyes, a smile finding its way on his chapped lips.

“You know I outrank you all, right?”

“Never stopped us before,” Iolo shrugged.

“Definitely not gonna stop us now,” Jess said as she sat down next to them, her knee touching Poe’s.

Their laughers quickly faded, letting the silence come back on the small group of pilots. Karé was still fidgeting with her ring, but the sadness on her face had been replaced with weariness – the small flame of the lit candle highlighting the new reddish scar on her chin and the way her tired eyes were losing themselves in the details of the ground.

It was Jess who finally broke the silence, a timid laugh in her voice as she spoke.

“Y’all remember that recon mission on Sharlissia? The one when we’d just moved the base to D’Qar and Organa send us to make sure the life signals weren’t First Order?”

“Oh, you mean the recon mission where we ended up stuck for three days because Snap got lost in the forest trying to get back to his ship?” Iolo was visibly retaining a laugh, the corner of his eyes crinkling.

“Oh, Maker,” Karé chuckled, her eyes fixed on the ring. “And when we finally found him, the guy was walking around half naked because some natives stole his flight suit when he was trying to clean himself in a river?”

“He looked like a whole ass panicked wampa when Jess brought him back to the ships,” Poe was laughing too, his whole body hysteric at memory.

“Should’ve seen his face when I found him,” Jess was shaking with laughter, and went to wipe a tear escaping her eye. “Fuckin’ priceless.”

“Kriff,” Poe shook his head. “We really never let him forget that one, uh.”

“Damn right,” Karé breathed, letting her head rest back on the side of her X-Wing. Fresh tears were rolling on her cheeks, but she was smiling nonetheless.

“I’m gonna miss him,” Jess finally broke the new silence Poe hadn’t even notice had settled.

“Yeah,” Iolo’s voice was weak, his eyes focused on the flame of the candle. “I can’t believe it – after all the shit we went through and survived, it felt like…” He shook his head, his lips in a thin line.

“Like we were all immortals,” Poe completed, almost inaudible.

“Yeah.”

Poe looked down at his free hand, at how it was still slightly shaking from the shock of the battle.

“I can’t stop hearing his scream.” Karé was talking between her clenched teeth, her voice trembling again.

They all lifted their heads to look at her, whose facial expression matched the tone of her voice. Poe instinctively reached to take her hand in his, holding tight. Another tear rolled down Karé’s cheek as she squeezed back.

“It’s like it’s engraved in my ears, like it’s gonna be there forever,” Her voice sounded like it was about to break. She tried to speak again, but her whole face scrunched up in a pained grimace. “And it’s my last memory of him. The last I’ll ever have.”

“But not the only one you ever made,” Iolo leaned forward, reaching out to put a hand on Karé’s knee – that was something. Iolo had never been a tactile being, rarely the one to offer a hand or a hug: a hand on a knee was Iolo’s equivalent to Poe’s five minutes hugs. “When I – when, uh, Bastian died, it was…” He cleared his throat, as if it would somehow stop his voice from trembling.

Even though Iolo didn’t talk about it that often, the whole squadron knew how Bastian’s death, a few month prior Exegol, had affected him. The two men had been dating for more than three months, and if it didn’t seem much to some people, it had been Iolo’s longest relationship since Poe had met him. And just like Karé, he had to sit in his ship and listen to his lover’s last words, helpless. The Keshian cleared his throat one more time, blinked hard.

“When Bastian died,” He continued with a stronger voice. “I was completely lost for some times. You just get stuck on the bad things, you know? The way… the way they die, their last words to you, how it’s gonna affect your whole future.” Poe heard a muffled sob coming from Karé, who was looking straight into Iolo’s eyes even through all the tears that were running down her face.

“But,” Iolo continued, cocking his head with a sad smile. “Then you remember all of the rest – the good, the funny, the awkward. You remember how it was like being around them, and everything you took out from it. You remember the smiles and the laughs and how they changed your life for the better. And, uh, eventually you – you get along with it. Because you don’t have any other choice and because you know how guilty they’d feel seeing you getting so worked up about it.”

Iolo flipped his hand on her knee, offering his palm.

Karé took a shaking breath and grabbed it before meeting his gaze again. Poe could feel the conflicted energy coming out of her, a mix of grief and anger but also gratefulness and love.

“Eventually,” Iolo was crying too, now – not loudly, but still. His dark eyes were pooling, some tears already escaping to roll down his cheeks. “You stop hearing the screams. Because you realize that there was _so much more_ than just these last few seconds. So you hear them laugh or talk or joke.” He smiled. “You hear them telling you how they’re gonna come beat your ass up if you continue to mope like that.”

Karé chuckled, a strange and strangled noise through her tears. Poe squeezed her hand again, and suddenly became aware that he was crying too – so was Jess, her knees drawn close to her chest and her face half hidden behind them. Poe realized how rare it was for him to see his friends cry. They were some of his closest friends – hell, his _family_ – and yet, he never saw them cry. His stomach tightened a bit at that thought – there had never been time. Between the fighting, the missions, the catastrophes, the hurt – war had always forced them to swallow their feelings and move forward.

But now the war was done, and there was nowhere left for them to hide their scarred hearts.

Nothing left to mask their pain.

Poe swallowed hard, blinked hard, grit his teeth even harder. Took in his hand the small flask of liquor that Jess had brought with her and stared at it for a second. Remembered.

“We made a promise,” He whispered, frowning at the once shiny metal of the bottle.

“What?” Iolo leaned forward.

“Snap and I. That time we got really drunk in that cantina on Nar Shaddaa, and we ended up starting a bar fight and getting chased down the streets by a group of angry Rodians.”

“Yup,” Jess pinched her lips, nodded. “Sounds like something you two could pull off.”

“No, but when we got back to the ships wasted to death, we made a promise.”

“What kind of promise?” This time it was Karé talking, her voice almost back to normal.

Poe smiled at the flask, raised it. “The promise to celebrate the other’s death by getting completely wasted, no matter the circumstances.”

“Sounds even more like you,” Jessika mumbled, but there was a smile making its way to her lips.

“To Snap,” Poe raised the bottle a bit higher, looked at each of his friends in the eyes. “Our reckless old man, but also the kindest of us all.”

The general took a sip of the liquid, before passing it to Jess, who stared at it for a few seconds.

“Snap,” she finally said, raising the flask. “Probably the one of us with the highest ass-saving score. I owe him my life. And a lot of astromechs.”

A gulp and a few discreet laughs later, the bottle landed into Iolo’s hand, who didn’t even take any time to think.

“Wexley,” his eyes went to the night sky for one second, then landed down on earth. “Hell of a pilot, and hell of a friend. His absence won’t go unnoticed, and neither will his sacrifice.” He drank.

It came to Karé’s turn to speak, and suddenly the clearing went quiet again – deadly quiet, for seconds that seemed to be stretching into minutes. A silence long enough for Poe’s mind to start wandering, flying far enough for Norra Wexley’s face to pop into his tired mind. His throat tightened. He remembered hearing Wedge Antilles’ voice in his helmet, a few hours before – and where Wedge went, Norra followed. He wondered if she already knew, wondered if she was there on Ajan Kloss. Wondered if he’d have to be the one to tell her the news, eventually. He blinked hard.

Snap died before she even got to the fight.

“Snap.” Karé’s voice sounded rough and low, but she kept talking anyway. She raised the flask with a trembling hand – the same hand she gave Snap a few years ago, with the promise that they would spend the rest of their life together, side by side. “You…” She paused, swallowed hard. “You fucking bastard,” Karé breathed out between her clenched teeth as she closed her eyes again. Nobody spoke as she paused again, rubbing at her eyes with calloused fingers. “With all the reckless shit I did, you’d think he’d be the one having to make a fucking eulogy.”

It sounded like an attempted joke, but one way too sad for any of them to laugh. Karé wiped her nose with the sleeve of her flight suit, and let her head fall back against her ship.

“I told you once that I’d follow you anywhere. That I’d always be by your side, no matter what, because I knew that without you, nothing would really matter. And… shit,” She shook her head, took a painful breath. “Shit, man. This is the worst way to realize I can’t keep this promise. I can’t. I can’t keep it, and I always thought I’d be the one, b-but this… I can’t follow you. I can’t follow you, Snap. I can’t. I can’t.” Tears were flooding again, from Karé’s eyes to her cheeks and down her chin. From Iolo’s eyes to Jess’ cheeks and down Poe’s chin.

Karé covered her face with two shaking hands, rubbing it as if it would make the sadness go away – they all wished it could. She was sobbing, as quietly as she could (but Karé Kun was never good at being quiet), muffling the sounds behind her damp palms, a few murmured “ _I can’t_ ” escaping her lips from time to time.

Eventually, her hands slipped down. Eventually, she picked the flask from where she had let it fall to the ground, and raised it again, the redness of her eyes enlightened by the flame of the candle, her fingers clenched around the small bottle.

“To Snap,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong. “May his spirit never leave ours, and may his love make us stronger.”

“To Snap,” they all echoed, even though their hands were empty. Their voices died quickly, stifled by the branches and the leaves of the jungle.

Poe looked up at the stars, at the constellations he was only starting to get familiar with.

He thought about how many of his friends wouldn’t ever be able to look at them again.

*

Celebration only began to die down at sunrise, when euphoria started to wear off even for the most energetic rebels. People were walking back to their tents, their caves, their spaceships, leaving bottles of alcohol and leftovers of food all around the base.

It almost felt like a usual early morning in the Resistance, Poe thought from where he was laying on the nose of his X-Wing, still staring at the sky (the stars were starting to fade, but he thought it fair to look at it a bit more, if only to honor the memories of those who couldn’t) and its nuances of light blue and purple and yellow. An early and fresh morning in the jungle – not an unfamiliar feeling.

He remembered those precious mornings on Yavin IV, waking up to the smell of breakfast and running downstairs to find his parents together in the kitchen, talking and humming as they cooked.

He remembered the mornings of a few years later, when the Dameron fields looked grayer and his dad had no one left to hum along with.

He remembered that one cold and early morning, when he hugged his dad goodbye before jumping on a transport and leaving for the Academy. Remembered the shadows in his father’s eyes, and suddenly missed him even more (but it was fine, because he would come home soon. He would come home and bring the news to his father and hug him, the way he forgot to hug him back before flying away, all these years ago).

Poe Dameron suddenly realized how much he should’ve done, and didn’t do.

He should’ve let his mother hug him as much as she wanted to, should never have complained. Should have said more to Muran, and not take the time they had for granted (not a day went by without regret). He should have looked at Leia a bit longer, too. Should have looked her in the eyes one more time and squared his shoulders, tried to make her proud a bit harder. Kriff, he should’ve hugged her, too, titles be damned. Thanked her. But everything happened so fast – it felt like yesterday Poe was eight, and suddenly he’s old, and everyone is gone. His mom is gone. L’ulo is gone. Muran is gone. Leia is gone. Snap is gone.

Everything happened so fast.

“You know you can’t stargaze in the daylight, right?”

The corner of Poe’s lips curled at the voice echoing from his right, dragging him far away from his thoughts.

“I don’t stop believing in the stars when the sun comes up, buddy,” he sat up on his ship, ignoring the dizziness as he looked down to find Finn, beautiful Finn, standing a few meters away with his arms crossed over his chest.

Poe jumped off his X-Wing, suppressing a surprised wince as his feet hit the ground and the shock reverberated all the way to his wounded arm. He stood up a bit straighter and smiled.

“General,” he said.

“General,” Finn nodded back, his dark eyes scanning the pilot for a few seconds. “You’re completely wasted, aren’t you?”

“Oh, definitely,” Poe started nodding too, but stopped as soon as he realized what a bad idea that was. “Kriff. Why, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think my level of wasted will ever reach yours, Dameron.”

“True.”

“How are you feeling?”

Poe considered the question for a few seconds, letting his gaze wander to the trees around them. Someone was sleeping under one the X-Wings. “Don’t know,” he ended up saying – it was as true as he could get, afraid that the alcohol in his veins would make him spill way too much.

Finn had probably his own internal turmoil to deal with too, now was not the time for oversharing and asking for comfort.

Finn almost died on Exegol.

Finn almost died.

Poe’s eyes flew back to him, and suddenly they were both staring at each other, brown eyes diving in brown eyes. He thought back to everything they shared, their adventures, their room. Their title. About everything they went through together, as soldiers and as friends. The touches, the glances and every silent agreement they ever had. Every single time he thought he was going to lose Finn, just like he lost everyone else. About how this feeling slowly but surely started to warm up his chest, the way it hadn’t since his New Republic’s days. The way it hadn’t since Muran was sharing his life, constantly orbiting around him.

He never told Muran that he loved him.

“I love you,” Poe suddenly blurted out, unable to catch the words before they tumbled out of his mouth. He immediately closed his eyes, scrunching his nose at his own awkwardness.

The frown that had taken place on Finn’s face suddenly smoothed out to let a smile take its place, and the young man raised his eyebrows. “I know,” he answered, looking fond but also suppressing a small laugh, and Poe realized how ridiculous all of this must have looked like – an overly drunk soldier blurting out nonsense at dawn. Damn it, Dameron.

“No,” he went to scrub his face with his good hand, tried again. “But I mean it. I love you. I love you. I love you. Finn—” _Yup_ , he was making this worse.

“Poe,” Finn took a small step forward, and it felt like the motion reverberated all around them, making all of Poe a little bit warmer. “We’ve been dating for six months.”

“No, I know. I know, it’s just – I haven’t told you. I should have told you,” He takes a long breath, scratches his temple. Looks at Finn again. “I love you.”

They stayed like that for some times, just staring into each other’s soul, waiting for the right thing to say, the right thing to do. Finn got to it first.

“I love you too,” he breathed, and Poe got suddenly aware of the tiny sparkles growing in his eyes. He always loved Finn’s eyes, the way they seemed to fill up with wonder at everything, every time he learned about something knew. He still remembered the look on his face the first time the younger man saw Ajan Kloss, and never got tired of the way the corner of his eyes crinkled whenever he tried to eat something he’d never seen before.

Because Finn was like that: stable, sure of himself, brave, but also innocent, fragile, and young in a way none of them could really understand (Well, not entirely true. Maybe Rey could, maybe more than Poe ever suspected. These two were linked by something way beyond his own understanding). A twenty-five years old man whose life only started a year ago – a twenty-five years old man who had never known anything else than war and loss.

“We won the war,” Poe said, unable to let Finn’s face out of his sight – but that was okay, because Finn seemed to be having the same problem. Beautiful Finn.

“We did.”

“You’re alive.”

“You’re alive too.”

“I thought I was going to lose you.”

“I’m here,” the warmth of Finn’s hand suddenly invaded his own, and a tension he hadn’t even noticed melted off Poe’s entire body. “I’m not going anywhere, Poe. It’s done.”

Poe started nodding, almost mechanically. “It’s done.”

He remembered the echoes of an old conversation between them, months ago, so long ago, sitting in the cockpit of the Falcon – after Crait, when everything felt so lost and pointless.

_Let’s win this war already, Poe._

_Let’s win this war already, Finn._

“We won the war,” he repeated one more time, slowly. Just to make sure the words were real. They didn’t feel real (but maybe they did to Finn. That’s all that mattered.) “We lost a lot.”

“We’ll rebuild.”

Poe stared over Finn’s shoulder for a moment, trying to swallow all the negativity that was about to burst out of his chest. “You can’t rebuild people,” he opted for, only to immediately regret saying it. He looked down at his boots. His old black boots getting blurry.

“It’s true. But you can honor them. Honor their sacrifice.”

The pilot nodded, absently. Swallowed again. “It’s going to be a shitload of work.”

Finn smiled softly, pressed his hand in his. “Oh, yeah, it is. But we have time. And we have each other.”

Their eyes met again, and this became yet another one of their silent agreements. The promise to stay together till the end – no matter what. They already made it so far. They survived so much. Poe cleared his throat.

“Let’s build a new government already, Finn.” He tried to sound determined, even cocky, but his voice betrayed him as he stared into Finn’s eyes, and he realized that more than anything, it was a question he was asking – begging, if he was being completely honest with himself. Begging for Finn to stay with him, to do this with him. He’d never have the strength to do it alone. He’d never have the strength to do it without Finn.

It didn’t take more than a second for the young man to break into the brightest smile, one that made the pilot’s heart way too warm again. “Let’s build a new government already, Poe.”

And while Finn led him back to their small tent, their hands still glued together, Poe thought about the future. About everything they could build, for the galaxy and for themselves. About how he would wake up to Finn a few hours later, and tell him once again that he loved him – just because he could.

Because for the first time in forever, the future was theirs.

And there was nothing Poe wouldn’t do to ensure it stayed that way.


End file.
